Glimpses
by Feirdra
Summary: A tweak on Day of Reckoning. Wanda’s dead, Kurt’s gaining a new appreciation for the amount of blood he has, while everyone else (BoM, Rogue, and counting…) angsts their little heart out. Top-heavy with self-psychoanalysis and Pietro.
1. Introspection

**Glimpses**

-Introspection-

Times one, times two, times three, the clock goes inching by, tick tock, tick tock, tock...

Gnaw, rats, growing crawling agony aching aching aching...

Weary, heavy, dull, tired of the world. Not good enough. Never, never good enough. Nothing more said.

Fleeting, eyeblink, glance, gone. Flicker, candle, whip, fizzle out. Die. Away, fly, float, watch all pass like a subway cyclone, dead.

Die.

Dead walking, breathing, seeing, knowing, thinking feelingsmellingsmilinglaughingbouncingjumpinghappyrunning_fall_. Dead dead dead. Leaden weights dropping into the middle.

Reach out one finger. Touch, tip, ripple ring ring ring ting. Folds of liquid smooth messy paint-swirled reality. Tunnel perfection breaking up and over, maybe up and over all in time? Wait a little more. Wet. Drip drip. 

Stand on the platform, watch the train pass you by. Encounter a friend and a half, expect with the eyes, don't slow the steps they can't know, half smile lips open say _hi there_ for today's sake. Talk bright lively, sweep up and by in a wind, breeze you by. Left in the dust of humiliation. Still keep on, don't slow don't stop don't look around. Too tired.

No color no brightness awash in gray sea. Wave in down abyss wave out, come and go and gone again. Rush, clean and fast. Sky horizon water clouds greenbrowngrayblackit'sallthesameanyway. Cold and heavy. So heavywet fell into the swimming pool in your coat.

Running is life. Running is free, elsewhere, blur of unreality. Run away. Blue eyes mirrorhatredeternityturncoat_nothingtobedoneforhersir_runawayawayawayfromeverything.

But sometimes, even the Quicksilver gets sick and tired of the world.

--

**Info:** Lessee… This is set after The HeX Factor and Day of Reckoning Parts I-II, with all the events that implies… kinda. You'll see. ^-~

**A/N:** Okay, I'll admit it, this was a piece of crap even for my first X-Men Evo fic… er. I hate it, and I was just writing with my eyes closed to get over writer's block, which resulted in flash of inspiration being twisted into a complete mess. But somehow more inspiration struck just as I finished this (O_O Inspiration _doesn't_ hate me?!) and now there's more to come! O_o Better run for your lives peeps. *sigh* Shortest thing/chapter I've ever written. That's probably a good thing. -_- The next installments will be… somewhat different.

**Tribute: **This odd bunch of nonsense was inspired entirely by reading and extensive rereading of Naisumi's deep fics. They're so deep you'll drown in 'em if you're not careful. Kudos to you, Nai. ^-^ Her incredible fics are infinitely better than this pieca shit.

**Ending Note: **I'm outta here. *ducks flames* Constructive criticism would be mucho apreciado, gracias! *flees*

**Next Installment: **Retrospection


	2. Retrospection

**Glimpses**

-Retrospection-****

**One**

-

_Twin needle's eyes, overconcentration, acid orange emblazoned. Hellish depths aflame, swimming holocaust lava field reflection, glaring car's lights at night too bright blinding in day..._

_Steel finger on not-wings **LOOMS **shadowing the sky, still invisible silence, swooping in for the kill. Naked before death, ungraspable emptiness on all sides, nothing in between no shield but emptiness sliced apart a moment immediate in magenta eraser's bright rays..._

_Last wits, throw all your cards on the table, one last desperate gamble spearlightningspikefleshtooltooltoolgropeeverything**flung**. Nothing. Turn and run but don't turn your back **run for your lives**!!!_

**_Clank_**_._

-****

**single moment**

-__

_"Look out!"_

_Green green putty amoeba phutphut._

-****

**flittering**

-__

_"Keetty– **Rogueh**!" **Slam**redwhitegreenblackgoldblueblackredgreenwhiteworldinaballofwindnowind**can'tbreathe**. Slipticklecoolfree pale flash! River empty to full swell. Drain, leak into hissing velocity **no**–! **Oof**!–  Dust air's stinging tickle no air all dust dust dust **air**!_

_"Kurt! Oh Gawd **Kurt**!" Monstrous red blossoms grinning up from blue waving grass, scarlet rain trickling from darkdark depths of the gutter. Nonono... "W-Wake u-hp... Ah didn't– A-ha didn't me-an to! Ah'm s-orry..." Whisper breakup hoarse into silent. Useless._

_"Rogue, get outta there!"_

**_Phut_**_._

-****

**on broken**

-__

_Jelly jelloslime **alive** writhingbobbingbubbling**freeze**. Green smothering pillow over your face in your nose then nothing nothing nothing burning white._

-****

**butterfly wings...**

-

_"Wanda! Don't do this!"_

-****

**What if...**

-

_"Da– Magneto! You-You–"_

_Black coat in summer sun, oven at your back burning**hot**. Dull-keen concussion screaming ripflash searing outto metal-curling inferno. Melting softly into gray cloud pulse **bulgebulge** à la cauliflower. Beat. Sweep. Crackle._

-

**"What if"**

-__

_Ripripr**ii**pflash**flash**._

_Sickening wet **thwack**__bloodcurdling scream raucousashellupandup-_

_"Wanda!" Runrun**runNOW**–_

_"Pietro, wait!" Donewithyousavedyoualreadyforgotstupid– **LETMEGO**!!!** RIP**shred**snarl**animalfury**red**– **RUN.**_

_"**WANDA**!!!" Downdownfreefall**fly**. Twist and flip the boundaries of earth and sky**– **verticalrollercoasterridewithoutthesafetyguards**free**!! Stopstop**stop**toofast**STOP**._

-

**became**__

-__

_Slosh red splattering paint puddle just a paint puddle splashing polka dotsain'titfunny!_

_Two birds with one stone one bird with a broken wing no birds... Lone smashed hourglass fallen by the wayside. Candlelit glow. Golden black sand pouring sideways to time burying glittering glass shards betternotsteponthem a little bit of desert. Broken puppet, right angles, wrong angles, angles angles angles tangent of 60º is 1.7321... Dracula as a rag dollwon'tshebeembarrassedfuriouswhenshehearsaboutitandI'llmakesureshedoes._

_"Wanda! C'mon, Wanda, I know you're fakin' it, **c'mon**, orareyouchicken? **Wan-DA**!" That alwaysalwaysalways gets her sooo mad she'ssogonnakickmyassgetreadytorun-_

_Nothing._

-

**"If only"?**

-

_Blip. Blip. Blip. Soft bubbles popping, little liquid green lava swamp. Blip._

_Bluebluejustalittleteensybitofbluepleaseplease..._

_"Hey, this isn't funny anymore."_

_Hate hospitals. Have to be quiet, strain not to laugh and laugh, just like a goddamn libraryhatestudying, makesyourfrigginthroathurtwant**out**. All white outside and dim inside like a badbad picture-resolution movie. Heavyheavy air, too heavyhot–can't–breathe._

_"So ya wanna play it this way, do ya, ya lazy arse? I'llwhipallyourpantiesintoFred'sdraweryouknowIwill–"_

_"Mr. Maximoff?"_

_Tiptoeing on eggshells in vain. Glass box shattering, sound waves ring ring ring reverberating, deafening. Stupiddoctorgoaway. Face in the mirror… blow-exhale, fog up the image does it make it go away? The world has no soft lines. Broken mirror refracting into a thousand, cursed compound eyes. Dammitthisismineanddoctorsaren'tallowedespeciallyyouwiththeclipboardandgoddamnlongface!_

_"... Yeah?"_

_"We're very sorry..." Gettothefuckingpointalreadyandwhothehell's**we**?! Sureain't me. "There's nothing to be done for her, sir."_

-

**One single moment...**

-

_Blip. Blip. **BEEEEEEEE**–_

--__

**Info: **This branches off directly from Day of Reckoning Part II, so you guys should be able to get most of this. If you have any questions just ask. And, lessee… flashbacks galore. Yiss yiss. ^-^ If the title didn't tip you off the italics should've… Plus one or two tie-ins with last chapter, kudos to y'all who noticed the one phrase that was exactly the same…

**A/N: **Um. O_O No comment. O_O

**Dedication: **To Switch, Ellen, Absolute Alcohol, and Christina for their coolios reviews, and to Saralyn, N, and Morwen O'Connor for their extensive critique. Thank you all for your valuable feedback! (Back: *dances*)

**Poll: **Just outta curiosity, who'd be pissed off and who wouldn't if I made this a Pietrance? Probably gonna be one anyway, just wanna get some input here. ^-^

**Ending Note:** Sorry this is so messed up. -_- I'm kinda trying out a new writing style. I had several other somewhat more… legible ideas for making my Evo debut but this one just popped up. The next installments will try their best to be your average paragraphed, pretty much fully-sentenced and explicit story-mode writing. Uh and, *gulp* I'll do my best not to have suicidal Pietro or overdo the angst, I'm aware all the angst issues are WAY threadbare, chewed up and spit out, but… -_- Need constructive criticism much. *vanishes in a poof of smoke*

**Next Installment: **Er... Get back to you on that one... (Yes, there **is** a next installment. O_o Um, yeah.)


	3. Contemplation

**Glimpses**

-Contemplation-

Rain poured from the sky, wave upon wave flooding down the windowpane with such force that they were flattened to transparent nothing at the center, and spilled out in jelly tentacles at the edges, liquid sheets of suppressed motion. It had been raining nearly continuously for almost a week now. The pearl-flecked glass was cool against his forehead as he stared out into the gray, featureless world. These were the days everyone could see the world for what it was. An alive but decaying rubbed raw surface, flat and washed, about as real as the 3-D models made by computers. Long, rough brown fingers clenched into fists, rubbing across the glass, ears deaf to the hum of cafeteria conversation just behind him.

Lance Alvers was officially worried.

It wouldn't even be such a big deal, **if** the one he was wearing down his nails over didn't happen to be the "hated" traitor. Hated. Right. Like any of the Brotherhood really believed that, in heart or in mind.

They were a fairly loose-knit group; not like the X-Geeks, who seemed to feel the need to post at least two bodyguards per person whenever possible, and **especially **when the Brotherhood of **Evil** Mutants was anywhere in the vicinity. Though that might be a **slight** exaggeration.

"Hey, you guys are really going out?" came a sandy, breathy voice echoing down the hall.

Lance rolled his eyes as he saw Scott Summers coming down the hall, ruby-tinted sunglasses flashing in the pale light falling from the high windows so that one could perceive him out of the corner of the eye immediately as he turned the corner, even at this distance. _Exaggeration? Yeah right._

That mental case redhead, Jean Grey, was walking as close as possible to the tall brunette without actually becoming fused to his hip, and at the other shoulder, half a step behind, bounced the fuzzy blue freak, all lankiness, pale and goody-goofy in his holowatch getup that Todd was so jealous of.

Lance sighed a little and rubbed the back of his neck, closing his eyes. No, the Brotherhood was nowhere near as buddy-buddy as **them**. There was, at most, disinterest most of the time, a sort of independent coexistence in the old, rundown Victorian, each of them to their own corners, lives, secrets. Sometimes, they'd talk. On the sloped roof in the clouded golden sunset, they'd talk of nothing and everything at once, and sometimes they didn't open their mouths at all, and all were satisfied. Sometimes.

Still, there was brotherhood. Lance almost laughed. Yes, brotherhood in the form of a strange strain of loyalty, so light and invisible none of them ever really realized it except when banding together in battle. When one was absent in fighting alongside the others, they felt the emptiness another should have occupied. Maybe that was why they were all so angry at Pietro. What right had he to betray them, to leave them behind to nothing while he climbed on up? What right had anyone? Lance did laugh, this time, but it was a thin laugh, laughter drawn by irony rather than humor.

He, Lance, had himself sought to abandon the group. He did not know why they had welcomed him back. Why they had seemed to harbor so little resentment while now they seethed against Pietro, even as he did, again without truly knowing why. Anger, though, not hatred. It was impossible to hate the speedster, in spite of his endless litany of faults, which included an ego too big for anyone's comfort, especially Lance's. He was one of them, and there was no way of getting around that to the total exclusion of hatred.

Still, Lance could not completely justify his anger at the betrayal. He knew what reason demanded, and it urged overwhelmingly to leave the Brotherhood to anyone with a modicum of sense. He himself had listened to that call, and the allure of a certain pretty freshman had firmed his resolve. So why had he returned? The X-men had a manor, had good food, clothes, resources provided to coddle their mutant powers; basically they lived the good life. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, was a dead end, and all of them knew it. They were, at best, lackeys, at worst, the ignored scum of society, buried in the ashes and decay on the wrong side of the tracks. They could neither go up nor down, nor did they have anywhere else to go, and so they had to go forward. And forth they went, somehow eking out an existence day by day with their meager resources, abandoned, forgotten by everyone, it seemed. But in the end, in the face of all reason, Lance had found it impossible to leave the younger boys alone to that fate. He shook his head. Lance Alvers had a conscience.

Rogue had been part of it, for a little while. She'd broken away, seemingly without a thought, just up, boom, and gone, and left a void that Pietro had filled. Pietro, the little guy along with Todd, who seemed to fill the places of two people at once, and more yet. He was just so **there**, so real and solid in a washed away world, and in truth he seemed to be everywhere at once, all ecstatic ebullience and willful enthusiasm. The Brotherhood was like that for Lance, a harbor in an endless sea in which he would be lost and drowned in anonymity were it not for their safe albeit dubious anchorage, and he was grateful.

But Pietro… Pietro was just a little more, seemed to possess some internal spark, a zest for life none of them seemed to quite have, and he **loved** being the center of attention, as he often was, the rest of them too lazy or tired or just plain bored to bother themselves. Now, though, there was only them, him, brooding most of the time, he had to admit, and Todd, squawking at every shadow at night, and of course Freddy, who usually broke at least two to six things per day. Ah, well, the Victorian was too cluttered anyway. Who knew Mystique was such a packrat? Still, now that both Pietro and Boom-Boom had gone, the house was noticeably quieter.

Truth to tell, the boy was just so alive, so terribly **alive**, it almost frightened Lance, and he could tell he wasn't the only one. When Pietro came ripping into their lives, a whimsical sleight-of-hand of the wind turned flesh, it was as though he'd ruptured something, some smothering barrier, something… **sharpened**, into clarity. Lance shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Reality.

He was broken out of his train of thought by the sound of Jean's voice, just behind him. "It really wasn't your fault, Scott. Besides, Mystique will be back."

"Unfortunately." That was the German kid.

Lance rolled his eyes. Those "gifted" Xavier Institute kids. **Institute**. Jeez, like they were in college already.

And that annoyed Lance. It seriously annoyed him, because he knew that by the end of this year Scott Summers and Jean Grey really would be prancing off to college with their perfect grades and perfect looks and perfect **everything**, not worrying about a thing except perhaps what to pack and saying a sappy and appropriately tearful myriad of goodbyes. And him?

Kitty kept badgering him about it. Sweet Kitty. She was a good girl, but sometimes she just didn't understand.

"Hey, Lance," she'd say, leaning her cheek on one hand as she was wont to do when she was serious, the gentle-cool blue eyes, like river tide, fastening upon his own and that thoughtful little smile just touching her lips with a hint of curve, "Have you thought about going to college? I mean, I'm only a freshman and my parents are already going on about it day and night." Then she'd chuckle at the officiousness of those adults, and he'd be silent.

She never seemed satisfied with this, and always lifted her eyebrow and looked at him expectantly in his silence. He'd grunt something unintelligible and avert his eyes. Case closed. She never pressed the subject either. Had to give her credit for that. Except for that one time…

"C'mon, Lance, don't your parents, like, get on your case a lot too?" This was on one evening when Kitty had been especially irritable. Something about Kurt being a coward. Well. Lance concurred with her on that one. Except his view encompassed most of the world.

He said nothing. There was nothing to be said. Just stared, trying to bore a hole through her to the wall. Wishing for once she wasn't sitting opposite him in all her delicate prettiness.

She realized her gaffe almost at once. "Oh!" One hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Most would have called it adorable, but in that moment Lance simply found it somewhat strange and… comical, perhaps. In a twisted, twisted sort of way, like the cackle of a clown gone sour. "Oh, Lance, I'm so sorry…"

Normally, Lance would have warmly accepted the concern in her voice. Normally. That day, however, all he heard was the unctuous bubble, with a soft, soft lacing of whine. The voice of a child, needling at his ears. It was never the same after that.

They barely saw each other these days. They never spoke to each other at all. He imagined she was avoiding him, and he didn't mind, really. Actually, he just didn't care. There had been anger at first, an almost palpable self-righteous indignation emanating from the lot of them. It had been amusing, really, if one didn't count having Scott Summers as a quasi-stalker, always a shadow somewhere around the next corner. He had known what they wanted. Retribution, though the stuck-up moralistic héros-du-millénaire would **never **admit to that. Lance smirked a little at the retreating backs of the trio. They never caught him. He made sure of that.

And whenever he saw Kitty Pryde now, Pietro's words rang in his head, spoken one evening in the living room just before the Sadie Hawkins dance, in a sudden spate of anger seemingly out of nowhere, "**Shit**, Lance, give it up already! No, I'm serious. Look, she'll never get it. She **can't**, 'cuz she's never been in our shoes, ya know?" His belligerent voice, mocking and serious all at once, had risen with every word, accelerated with each breath, till it was very difficult to understand him at all, a stream of liquid syllables seeming to issue from his mouth like the rain outside as he flung his words almost savagely in Lance's startled face. "You've been to the mansion and everything, **sure**. It ain't hard to see where **they** come from with those fuckedupnoseoverbrain attitudes. But 'cuzofthat, they'llnevergetus. Neverevereverevereverinamillionyears. Andyouknowwhy?! You know **why**, **Alvers**?! They don't **want** to, goddammit, 'cuzweain'tworthit, Lance. We **aren't fucking worth it**." And then he was gone, leaving only a wind behind to buffet the other off his feet.

Lance shook his head in the wonder he still felt; even after all this time of knowing Pietro, the silver-haired speed demon never ceased to surprise. Pietro was cocky, whiny, childish at times, and always, **always **competitive almost to the point of life-or-death equals win-or-lose. In short, he was shallow as could be. **Not**. Lance shrugged to himself; who knew? One minute the kid was giggling like a five-year-old, running around smashing windows with his tailwind, the next he came onto you like a bull on a charge and barraged you with so much depth at once you couldn't take it all in even after you'd sorted out all the strung-together words.

He shook his head again, running his hand through his dark hair, grimacing at the tangled mess his fingers encountered. This stuff was becoming a mop. Pietro seemed to have the only comb in the house, either that or his speed.

_Dammit, what the hell is **wrong** with you, P? _he wondered at the sky. _Why the hell d'you leave us like that? **Fuck**._

He didn't want to think about Pietro anymore. That only brought more worry, and he had enough things to worry about, more immediate things. More than enough things. He shouldn't think about the damn speedster anymore. Images welled in his mind, unbidden. Scarlet on concrete, steeped in scarlet, swirling with black like some vampiric nightmare, black-scarlet, scarlet-black, swirling, swirling… He clutched his head and shook it once more, fiercely, till his ears rang.

**_No_**_. _That was a world away, a lifetime away. Priorities. Priorities. It was too close yet.

That kid was in **so** much trouble when he came back. **If** he ever came back… Lance refused to think about that. He was tired of thinking, and his head hurt, in a strangely dull sort of way that wouldn't be rubbed away. Dammit, he was tired, period. Tired of being picked up, used, tossed away, betrayed. Tired of having everything turn over and pound them into the ground. He banged his head against the glass, a muffled, almost inaudible sound despite all the force put futilely into it. A raindrop coursed outside, against his cheek. Something in the hallway reflected faintly on the glass caught his eye. A shadowy, squat form, slumped against a locker, almost lost in the slanted darkness far in the corner. He suddenly became aware how long he'd been standing there. The utter silence told him all he needed to know.

**_Fuck_**_._

His eyes slid back to the drooping form at the end of the long, metal-lined hallway. They slid shut then, squeezed tight. His fingernails dug into his palm.

**_Fuck_****.**

--

**Info: **Um… _Yes_, you're reading the same story. Glimpses. At this point I should probably explain that the two episodes after Day of Reckoning Part II happened the same way, mostly. I'll work it out in future chapters.

**A/N: **Erm, shoot. *smacks self on head* I have _no_ clue where all this came from. I planned this part to be shorter and this chap longer, but Lance _had_ to have his say. -_- Hey, at least it's readable, right? Unlike the other two chaps, I know. _ Believe me, I know.

The writing style is… drastically changed. I'm aware. Do _you_ see any way I could've written this chapter in the same style as the other two? Maybe. But frick, I need a break from mysteriousness. I'm writing a .hack//SIGN fic, for dot's sake.

Just as an aside, this may well turn out a Pietrance. Then again, it has an equal chance of not doing so. The story will see. Not me. Oh no. Who writes this thing, then?! O_O *peeks into closet*

**FYI: **Well, boys and girls, since Mistress of Dragons, along with others, have expressed their understandable confusion, I have decided that an explanation for the previous two chaps is _finally_ in order.

Introspection 

You'll understand this one later. I'll try. Really.

Retrospection 

Okay, here we go, peeps.

The first italicized section was about the Sentinel's attack, of course.

In the subsequent sections, for those of you who watched the episode, you probably got them, but for those of you who didn't, here goes: In Day of Reckoning II, several of the mutants got, er, frozen inside large blobs of green jelly, courtesy of the big pseudo-Iron Giant. Kitty and Rogue were both blobbed (as I like to call it). Kitty climbed out using her powers, but Rogue stayed trapped. Now, this is where things whirl off course.

In the episode, it seemed, Nightcrawler and Toad simply sat in the back and ran around dodging a bit. Now would good teamwork-driven X-Men do such a thing? I think not! 'Course, it's just me. *shrug*

_So_, Kurt knocked Rogue out of the way of her jelly, and in the subsequent tumble Rogue lost her glove. You all know what that means, so, moving on, Kurt was badly hurt (jeez…) when they finally came to a stop. Rogue, in shock, promptly got blobbed. -_- An exercise in futility, wasn't it? Ah, I'm so cruel to poor Kurt. *hugglez him*

Anyway, that's that, and now we go to the rooftops, where one line from the episode pops up. Basically, Wanda attacks Magneto, Sentinel attacks Magneto, "Xavier" attacks the Sentinel, poor Magneto, anyway, Wanda attacks "Xavier", the Sentinel attacks Magneto again, Magneto counterattacks and the Sentinel falls onto the rooftop and onto Magneto, but Pietro rescues him, blahblah, you all know this, or most of you. I'm not here to make an episode summary.

Now we _finally_ get to **the part**. Got your attention?

I've always been amazed at how Wanda was standing about a meter away from a gigantic exploding robot, and never got hit by anything, though she got knocked off the roof, apparently from the force of the explosions. Maybe it had something to do with her powers, but, well, my plot. Anyway, she still falls off the rooftop, but no Nightcrawler! *gasp* Pietro to the rescue! Bleh. I think the rest is pretty much self-explanatory.

The string of bold words dropping down in the middle of everything was just there to clear up what the hell was happening to your lovely episode, and to provide a little background.

Mistress of Dragons, I would suggest reading the episode summaries for Day of Reckoning on Rosiel's page, Brotherly Love. I'll provide the link when I get around to getting it myself. _ I operate on Favorites. Yes, I am abominably lazy.

Hope that pretty much clears it up. Any more questions, anyone?

**Dedication:** To jade, Mistress of Dragons, and Absolute Alcohol for their interesting reviews. ^-~ Keep 'em coming, folks! And to Naisumi for her feedback, **yay**!

**Tribute: **To batE, her website Thin Lines, and her _amazing_ Evietro fic, Admirer, which really deserves some magnificent award my poor brain can't begin to fathom. It's excelente, folks, and so much more. I'm not _quite_ an Evietro fan, not yet at any rate, but I read it. I **_loved_** it. **Read it**! That's a command. Thin Lines has opened up a whole new world for me, especially through that awesome Links section. ^-^ Ahhh, the bliss of the stacks upon stacks of fanfics piled out there, waiting to be discovered as I bleed FF.net dry of its own little stash. ^-^ I'm in heaven! And it's all thanks to you, batE! *bowbow* Thank you!

**Ending Note: **The next chapters will be in much the same style. I've got a sort-of plot going, but I really can't guarantee I quite know _where_ I'm going. *shrug* Come what may!

**Next Installment:** _Should_ be Circumspection, but these things have a mind of their own. -_-


	4. Recollection

Glimpses 

-Recollection-

His footsteps echoed hollowly down the hallway, his stride carefully measured and deliberate on the coldly lit tiles. He knew the other heard him, yet the burlap-shaded head never budged, unkempt hair hiding all expression.

Rows upon rows of stark metal lockers stretched in grim uniformity on each side, so that the walk seemed without end, him not getting anywhere, the vast expanse of hard reflective surface glowing faintly before him a treadmill that went on and on…

The Road goes ever on and on… Rustling, like the wings of so many birds; the musty, comforting papery scent permeating every smooth-grained yellowed page; shelves and stacks, chests and old, rickety drawers, all aligned, script flowing and standing perkily, jauntily; worlds limitless as time itself lying shut between twin palms of leather and colored paper. He lost himself in their lingering embrace. Down from the door where it began. A smile spread unconsciously, wide and unrestrained, for once. Now far ahead the Road has gone, 

_And I must follow, if I can,_

_Pursuing it with eager feet,_

_Until it joins some larger way_

_Where many paths and errands meet._

_And whither then? I cannot say._

In the space of a breath, he dared to hope for a chance. The world was wide. The horizon extended from one side of the sky to the other, endless. Surely there was some space for him and the others.

Then in a breath's time he was there, and suddenly it was too soon. Nevertheless, he leaned against the cold, biting metal alongside, casually, shuddering inside at the startling chill that seemed even more pronounced in grim accompaniment with the overcast sky and pouring rain outside.

"Hey." Lance's voice was one of gentle sympathy. "How're you holdin' up?"

He was finally granted the wide-eyed stare of the twin yellowish orbs, bloodshot, faint spidery crimson lines crackling about a pupil of moon-distant gold, eerily two-dimensional when it should not have been. The stare of an amphibian, inhuman to so many. Todd lowered his head hastily beneath the older's silent, expectant gaze, shoulders hunched.

"What do you think?" came a reedy voice, trembling, stretched taut as it willed itself to be hard.

"I think you need to stop mopin' around so much." Lance smiled at the sallow face, even paler than usual, accentuating temples webbed with a tangle of thready, bruised blue veinlets laced with red.

A half-hearted glare. "I ain't doin' no mopin', yo." This was belied by the red-rimmed eyes and Todd's refusal to meet the earth-shaker's eyes after his initial boldness.

The darker-haired boy had many things to say to that, but he decided to keep them to himself, contenting himself instead with taking a good long look at his friend. He couldn't remember the last time he'd bothered.

The Toad's cheeks sagged slightly, mouth and chin jutting out, almost like a beak, serving only to further the already grotesque twisting of the quasi-human features. Lance felt like he was looking at a gargoyle more than ever before, and frowned to see the shadows eternally clustering round the jaundiced eyes deepening from purple to almost black. "Have you been sleeping okay?"

As soon as he asked this, other small details began to emerge. Bruises stood out in sharp relief against the canvas of ashen skin. Lance had to quell the surge of hot anger that welled inside him as the ground began to tremble. Kitty had been so kind as to inform him that the Brotherhood "should maybe, like, not use your powers today and screw it up for the rest of us". Frankly, none of them gave a damn about the X-Geeks, but still… Lance shook himself.

Todd, who'd paused at his question, turned away abruptly, getting down in a crouch, and Lance recognized his stance; the younger mutant was about to hop away, and then Lance would never catch him.

The long, well-muscled legs tensed, readying themselves to jump, when a hand clamped down on one thin shoulder. Todd all but screeched, "Fine! Heck, great, yo." He tried to pry Lance's firm grip from his shoulder, to no avail. "Lemme go! You had your fun, Rocky!"

In an instant Lance's ruggedly handsome features were in his face, sharp umber eyes staring him down until he cringed and hated himself for doing it. "Really? 'Cause it sure don't look it." Lance was practically growling. "I'm **serious**, Todd. What's going on?"

The amphibious mutant almost cringed again at Lance's use of his true name. The older boy only did that in emergencies, or when he was getting real pissed off. Everyone called him Toad, usually. Lance had only used his name **once** before, and it was not an experience he cared to repeat.

And Lance's grip on his shoulder was really getting exceedingly painful. "Ow!" he couldn't help but yelp. "Leggo a' me an' I'll tell, yo, **really**!"

As soon as the pressure on his shoulder ceased, Todd turned away, muttering resentfully as he rubbed the bruise he was sure was rapidly forming, if it hadn't already under those unbelievably heavy fingers…

Behind him, Lance crossed his arms and waited, unable to keep a fleeting triumphant smile from loosening his darkened face. "I'm waiting, Tolanski…" He tapped his foot, mock-impatient.

"Fine, fine," the boy before him grumbled, before slouching against the locker with a sigh and a loud _clang_. He gathered his lanky limbs together till he was almost a ball, but all awkward jutting boniness, hugging his knees with arms that disappeared into stained white sleeves. And, with his face buried somewhere in the midst, he mumbled something completely unintelligible.

"What? Speak up, I can't hear you," chanted Lance, leaning down and cupping a hand to his ear.

Inside his warm little cocoon of musky mud-colored sweater, Todd bit his lip angrily. Flinging back his shaggy mane of sandy hair, he shouted into Lance's ear, "I **can't**!"

Who, thoroughly startled, stumbled back several steps as Todd watched with a satisfied smirk, but unfortunately still had the presence of mind to ask, "You can't sleep? Why not?"

" 'Cuz– 'cuz– aww, just **'cuz**, yo!" Lance sighed as his friend buried himself again.

"Okay, kid, this can either be cool, or it can be harder, and less pretty. I hafta tell you it's not gonna be easy either way, but you gotta get it over with, you know?"

"I know, man," groaned Todd from the safety of his arms. "I know."

"So why don't you come straight out and say it?" Lance sat against the locker beside him, one leg pulled up, resting his arm on the ripped knee of the jeans.

Todd looked up, took a deep breath, seemed to steel himself. His jaw tightened in determination, and Lance's nod of approval seemed to hearten his nervous efforts. The moon orbs slid to the floor as the shaggy-headed mutant said in a small, hushed voice, "It's the shadows, ya know? They're all over, yo, an' you never know wha's what, an' what might come outta there." He trailed off.

It was nothing Lance hadn't expected, but he was still a bit surprised. He'd thought Todd was over this; the shrieks, occurring only in daylight for some time now, were usually for fear of Duncan or one of his cronies being just around the corner, or so he assumed. He hadn't thought much of their recent return at night, just thought maybe Todd was up to some new midnight mischief. He smiled in remembrance of the time the youngster had attempted to look in Mystique's room for any cash that might have been left after her disappearance and had woken the entire household stepping on a spider.

But now was not the time for reminiscence. "You're afraid of the dark?"

The younger boy lowered his head in shame, and Lance resisted the urge to pat him on the head. "It sure hasn't seemed like it for a while now."

Todd muttered the next few words, trying to hide them as well as himself, it seemed. Lance caught little of what he said, only "… Pietro." The earth-shaker had to stifle a groan and the urge to bang his head repeatedly against a locker. As soon as he promised himself to **stop thinking about that**, it turned up again. Why, **why** couldn't he get away from Pietro?! The irony of this was not lost on Lance. The speed demon was in school, but hadn't come near him or any of the Brotherhood for some time; the last time Lance had spoken to him had been in the X manse before the disastrous mission with the geeks.

Wait. Wait, wait, **wait** a second. What did Todd's fear of the dark have anything to do with the speedster? It made no sense; Pietro wasn't one for petty tricks like that. His considerable pride would never allow it. As the speed demon himself had once said, with a disdainful flick of the hand, "I don't pick on little kids." Lance's interest immediately intensified tenfold.

"What about Pietro?"

Todd gulped; so he really hadn't wanted Lance to hear. "Screw that bullshit, Todd, he's a traitor, not a tabooed exile." The other looked at him as though he'd lost his mind. "So spill. Now." There was a dangerous gleam in the dark eyes.

Reluctantly, looking like he regretted even bringing it up, Todd told his story.

"I… get these bad vibes sometimes, yo."

Lance rolled his eyes as he translated, "Nightmares. Okay, go on."

Todd glared. "Anyway, I get these **nightmare** things, yo, an'– an' when I wake up, s'all dark, ya know? An' in the middle a' the night, I ain't exactly thinkin' straight, yo." He mumbled his words, repeating himself, barely conscious excuses tumbling incessantly from his lips. "An' s'all dark, man. 'Cept for the moon, 'course, dang creepy light, f'you ask me. Anyway, I wake up, an' there're all these shadows an' stuff, an' they're **movin'**, yo, an' who knows if there ain't somethin' in there, ya know?"

Silence was his answer, but Lance's eyes fixed on him prompted him to go on, which he did, even more nervously than before, his voice breaking up in its trembles. "An'– an' then Pietro came. One night, jus' outta the blue, ya know? Jus' nothin' one minute an' then he was there, yo. Straight outta the shadows, jus' like that, scared the **shit** outta me, yo." Todd smiled wryly at the memory. " 'Course I asked him straightaway what the **hell** he was doin' in my bedroom in the middle a' the night, but he just sorta laughed, yo, an' tol' me not to worry my little ass, or somethin' – he scowled, but Lance smiled; that was Pietro all right – an' he figured he'd scared me enough, yo. I got frickin' **steamed**, 'course, an' went after him with my tongue, woulda got him too, annoyin' li'l – Todd shook his fist, caught up in his tale – but he was gone already. An' after that I jus' figured the shadows were him, yo, jus' Pietro playin' around with me, I mean, who can trust that guy? But now he's jus' clean **gone**, yo, an' I can't pretend no more." The shaggy head drooped, the words a whisper now. "I can't pretend no more, yo."

Lance didn't know what to say to that, so he just settled for shaking his head in mute amaze. Pietro, playing big brother to Todd in his own odd way, it seemed, and getting it, too. Who would've thought?

A bitter taste stung his throat. Lance almost laughed. Who, indeed… 

--

**Dedication:**

To Chiru, Ellen, Mistress of Dragons and Absolute Alcohol. ^-^ Love y'all! This is for you!

**Info: **Um, I have no idea why Todd referred to his nightmares as "bad vibes". You'll have to refer to the "Dictionary of Toddism" for that 'un. ^-^'

The little song Lance had threading through his head is actually from The Fellowship of the Ring, the one Bilbo sings as he's going off after he "disappears". *chuckle* Weird little dude, that one…

**A/N:** When I say Pietro-centric, I _mean_ Pietro-centric. XD No really, see, my theory is that since Pietro's the most prominent member of the Brotherhood in terms of visibility, any drastic change in him would be generally noticed. Which is what is happening here, I think. . Then again it might just be my obsessive infatuation with Quicksilver at work. Hee.

Sorry about this taking so long. I was in Vegas. Also, this was supposed to be longer, with a second part, but I've cut that out 'cuz I need to touch it up, plus it didn't really fit properly. The next chappie will come a lot quicker as a result though. ^-~ Every cloud has silver lining, yo.

I think I screwed up Todd's speech patterns, even with my newly acquired 'yo' fetish. -_-

**Review Responses:**

**Chiru – **So glad the explanations were of some help. ^-^v Thank you for the nice critique and compliments! *holds out cookie*

**Ellen – **Welp, this is just about all Toddiness, just for you. ^-~ Don't worry, I'll see about cheering Pietro up one of these days. XD

**Mistress of Dragons – **0.o The explanations were more useful than I thought. In any case, thanks, they get in my head too most of the time; I'm the one who gets to turn the tables, then. 8D

**Absolute Alcohol – **Nope, not an Evietro fan. I just don't go for the mocha-skinned type, I guess. I'm also less than enthusiastic about Evan's general personality, which might have something more to do with it. *shrug* I love Pie, but Evan… no. Yes, your reviews are quite… different, in a good way. =D Awww, thanks. *hugz*

**Recommendation of the Chapter:**

Go read Mistress of Dragons's "Glimpses". It's pure OC, but it's very nicely written and quite creative. No Mary Sues, either.

**Ending Note: **Oy. These AN's just get longer every time. Oh, well.

Is there a pattern here or what? Introspection, Retrospection, Contemplation, Recollection, jeez…

The next installment will be Lance again, and then the next one Rogue's POV. I wasn't planning to have Rogue, but she slipped into my head and now she won't get out. *shrug* Circumspection, Pietro POV, should come right after that. Patience, 'kay? We'll get there… eventually.

As always, constructive criticism is welcomed and much appreciated.

Next Installment: Observation 


	5. Observation

Glimpses 

-Observation-

He hesitated at the door of the classroom. The rhythmic ticking of the wall-clock, the faint rustling of paper and the thin scratch of pencil were for once the only sounds in the color-plastered room, much to his chagrin. He poked his head around the doorframe, trying to keep his rangy frame out of sight, and held his breath, waiting for all hell to break loose. Or, in this case, a speed demon.

_Please, not this time, P…_ He frowned and opened his eyes, letting out his breath in a trembling sigh, half of relief and half of surprise. _What the hell–_

Then he saw Ms. Gardner's sharp green eyes on him. A hush had fallen that seemed to quiet even the constant fluttering of the laminated posters, generated by the little fan on the bureau at the front of the classroom. **_Shit_**.

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips, and Lance had to fight down a sigh of relief as he dared a sheepish answering grin and headed as unobtrusively as a six-foot or so senior could to his seat somewhere near the back of the class. The whispers began immediately, following him down the aisle; he scowled darkly and didn't try to hide it.

Ms. Gardner was young, and new at the school, but she was cool, and a really good teacher. Who knew AP Euro could be so fascinating? She actually made the extra effort to dig out first-hand accounts of many events and always had a packet of interesting and obscure facts to complement the endless reading that came with each chapter. She was also one of the few teachers who welcomed mutants in her class instead of sharing conspiratorial stares with the "normal" students. Of course, this also meant she insisted the seating arrangement be kept, and Lance would have much preferred to be seated with one of the other mutants in the class, even one of the X-Geeks.

Lance slumped down in his seat and buried his face in his hands, ignoring his seatmate who was also steadfastly ignoring him. She was a mousy little redhead who'd given him some shy glances now and then, but ever since that day, that day Pietro's stupid, **stupid **father had exposed mutants, all awareness of his existence seemed to have stopped.

_Fat lot of good that **that** does anyone…_ Lance sighed and stuck an arm deep into his shapeless lump of a bag, digging around for a piece of pencil that hadn't been used as a cooking or eating utensil and maybe, just **maybe** a sheet of paper. From the look of the prompt on the board, it was some sort of in-class essay, and those things were **murder**.

Not that Lance was a bad student. He actually did pretty decent in Euro, and there was a reason Ms. Gardner hadn't gotten on his case for his tardiness. She was nice but extremely strict. This was his first, in this class at least.

Lance sighed and gave up; no paper. It looked like he would have to improvise again. Ms. Gardner had been a little surprised when he'd come up with his arms and legs written through in as small a print as possible, but she'd given him brownie points for originality.

"Lance?" came a soft, timid voice to his right, and his head jerked around in surprise. Amia was actually **talking** to him?!

"Yeah?" The word came out harsher than he'd intended and she flinched. He softened his tone a bit, though not his bluntness. "What do you want?"

Her eyes were hazel, gold-flecked brown irises ringed with a fringe of startlingly brilliant green. It was probably the first time she'd looked him in the eyes. "Do– do you need some paper?" A feather-light brush on his hand startled him. He looked down to see her trembling hand, tentatively holding out a pristine sheet of lined paper.

"Gee… thanks." He gave her his trademark crooked grin as he accepted the help – what else could he do? She was so unassuming and naïve – caught between puzzlement at her sudden reconciliatory gesture and embarrassment at having apparently misjudged her. Amia was almost notoriously shy; maybe he should have cut her some slack on that account…

"Lance– Lance," she said suddenly in a fierce whisper, leaning forward and looking around nervously, looking terrified about the possibility they might be overheard. "This– This **isn't my choice**, Lance. It's my father– he–" She quieted suddenly, looking ashamed as a blush swept her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I really am." And she turned away, suddenly cut off by a curtain of brilliant coppery curls.

Lance stared. Then, with a deep sigh, he turned to his own work.

_So this is our legacy… Not your Professor's lovely little blind lies, Kitty. **This** is the world mutants are going to be living in from now on out…_

-

Amia started at the sound of a fist slamming down on the desk beside her. Biting her lip, she kept up her nonchalant façade, though the paper before her blurred and her hand shook so she had to take the pen from the paper to avoid a blot. Daddy would disown her if she associated with mutants. He'd said so. And he'd do it, too. After all, hadn't he done it before? So, she couldn't talk to Lance, couldn't even ask what was **wrong**…

Tears pricked her eyes, and she was hard put to keep them from flooding down her cheeks. _It's just all so unfair… so **wrong**. It's just the same as before! They're **people**, Daddy. People._

"**People**?!" She could hear her father's voice in her head, just as clearly as it had been in the kitchen the night before, the broken dish lying between them. "I'll tell you what they are, girl. I'll **tell** **you what they are**! They're **monsters**, and they'll take advantage of you, Amia. So you just stay away from them, or stay away from me! You hear me?!"

"Yes, Daddy, but he– it wasn't– it **wasn't** his fault, Daddy!" She couldn't let it go without a fight. She knew what would happen, it was always the same; he won, but she couldn't, **couldn't** let it go so easily. Her heart, and her very nature, however diffident, wouldn't allow it.

"Shut up! **Never** mention that– that **freak** under this roof again, by name or otherwise. He no longer has **anything** to do with us." Deadly calm. "Is that **clear**?!"

"Yes, Daddy," she'd said, like the good little tame daughter she was, while inside, her thoughts bled from the center of her being, burning all the more searing for their imprisonment within her, never to be released. _But he's my brother, Daddy, my little brother… I **can't** stop caring…_

Lance, completely oblivious to the turmoil of the girl beside him, had thrown down his pen in frustration, his paper blank save for his name and the date after a half hour of fruitless efforts to concentrate on his work. Unease prickled his thoughts like thorn, and finally he gave in, more to prove himself wrong than anything else. He stared across the room, and didn't have to look for long before finding the distinctive head of snowy hair.

For a moment, it seemed his heart had stilled in shock. Lance bit his lip, all his earlier disquiet flooding back. Pietro had always been thin, but now he was skeletal, skin drawn tightly over bone. The unnatural paleness of his cheeks was heightened almost to translucence by the fact that he had come into school soaked to the skin that morning, as he did all other mornings, seemingly making no effort to keep himself out of the rain. Lance couldn't help but shiver at the mere remembrance of the icy touch of the fat drops still pouring down outside.

The silvery hair was wilder than Lance had ever seen it, which wasn't saying a lot since the downy locks were usually kept in immaculate order, but Pietro had **never** neglected his hair no matter what; come rain, blizzard or high water, Pietro's vanity remained intact through it all. Now, however…

And his manner itself spoke volumes. The rock-tumbler's hands curled unconsciously into fists as he stared at his friend in dismay. The speed demon had always radiated an aura of constant, vibrant, never-abating energy; drumming fingers, tapping feet, thumping his neighbors on the back for no apparent reason, jumping onto desks and striking ridiculous poses in the middle of class, the ludicrous list went on and on. Lance knew it was only Pietro's vague interest in the class that had kept him from exploding; sitting still for two hours was no easy feat for one who lived as fast as Pietro did. That, and his quick brilliance that came up so unexpectedly now and then, and Lance could tell Ms. Gardner indulged the speedster on that account.

However, for some time now, there had been no speed, no energy, no nonsensical shenanigans in the middle of a discussion on the failings of the feudal era. In fact, there seemed to be an air of listlessness about the speedster now, like a wilting plant. He never raised his hand in class anymore to comment on the sexual adventures of Henry VIII, and spirited reenactments of the beheading of Lady Jane Grey had been conspicuously absent.

And one of the most glaring signs had been bothering Lance ever since he'd walked into class, late. Pietro hadn't pointed him out, alone in front of the class for all the world to see; hadn't seemed to notice him at all. There was an almost surreal blankness shrouding the younger boy like a curtain of fog, effacing him from the world. Pietro had always been the center of attention, his presence colorful as the fiery paintings of some bold, masterful artist; flamboyant, vivid and intense, passionate to bursting at the seams. Now he seemed just… not there, a specter of that lively youth, a wispy, wistful shadow, and he left a hollow emptiness in his wake.

As he watched, Pietro fidgeted a little, awkwardly stretching his lanky frame that had been scrunched up to try to fit between the chair and the lab table. That familiar indication of restlessness afforded a small, peculiar measure of comfort. Whatever else, it seemed Pietro had not yet lost his love of living fast, and the annoyance with sitting still that came with it.

The blue eyes suddenly flickered, the motion over before it registered, and Lance found himself staring straight into the normally expressive dark orbs. All at once, he was unable to breathe. Pietro bit his lip briefly and smiled– or tried to; it came out as that odd expression between a smirk and a sob that Lance had only glimpsed now and then beneath the fizzling exterior.

Lance held the gaze, unable to tear himself from those empty eyes, though he wanted more than anything to look away, and for the first time he knew his one true fear.

It was sitting just across the room.

--

**Dedication**

To LostAngel, Chris, Ellen, Chiru and Mistress of Dragons. 17! Awesomeness, yo! ^-^v Bring 'em on!

**Info: **… Okay, Amia was _not_ supposed to do that. 0.o Let's just say she was a passing OC who somehow acquired a background and a role in the story. Her brother _is_ a character on the show, though. ^-~ Betcha can't guess… or maybe you can. *mutters* Rats. There goes my new side plot. But Amia shouldn't play a _huge role; she isn't taking over or anything, so don't worry 'bout that. ^-^_

**A/N: **Um, as you can see, the story… _evolved_. 0.o I've got a semblance of a plot running around now, so I suppose I'll keep writing. *shrug* I would anyway, just for the heck of it. And the reviews. ^-~ Hehe. In any case… Our first hints of Lance/Pietro interaction, kinda sorta. Next chap will prob'ly be all Rogue, though. Hey, blame the southern gal!

I suppose since I'm bringing Rogue into this and… stuff the X-Men will have some kinda role in this story. They shouldn't be too hard to write. I _adore_ Nightcrawler, and Jamie! ^-~v *sings* Angst, angst, angst, I love angst!

Um, this is definitely starting to show Pietrance tendencies. . I'll see what I can do about that. Maybe I won't do anything at all. XD

**Review Responses:**

**LostAngel – **Welcome aboard Glimpses, where the creature in the closet presides over the plot and I'm just the poor pair of hands that gets to type it. ^-^ Pietro isn't _cute_… He's **_adorable_**! *glomp*

Pietro: Ehhh… . You can get off me now.

'E's just a big schweetie. *hugz*

This chapter provides you with some actual Pietro to look at… ^-~

**Chris – **^_^ Kewl! Look y'all, I just made somebody speechless! Nice, concise (lookie, a rhyme. 0.o), just the way I like it! ^-~v Thankee much!

**Ellen – **Glad you liked Todd's big chapter, dunno when the next one'll be though. Pietro will be all right, eventually… *evil laughter*

Pietro: *cowers*

Yes, pitiful, pathetic, beautiful, gorgeous, divine – but I digress, in any case, mortal, **fear me**. 8D

0.o You reviewed two times? Kewl! ^_^ Wanda… O_O Um… Look down and ye shall see. O_O

**Chiru – ^-^! Thanks for all the nicely structured compliments. *feels all warm and fluffy inside* O.o Me compared to Naisumi… Wow. That is a compliment of compliments, yo. ^-~**

This won't be a Rietro, though me am somewhat of a Rietro fan. Pietro/anybody is for me. But don't worry about that. I dunno which way the pairings will go yet, but I am getting weird vibes of Rogue/Lance for the next chapter… Then who would I pair Pietro with?! 0.o But Lance isn't even _in_ the next chapter… x.x If I bring Rogue into the equation it'll probably turn into Rogue = Lance = Pietro, with two oblivious people running around so… .

**Mistress of Dragons – I just love my reviewers so much. ^-~ Rogue stuck in my head isn't all that bad; I mean, it's not like I dislike her character or anything, it just delays the plot again. . Anyway, your fic is coming along rather well, I can't wait to see more of it! ^-~v**

*****IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT*****

Er, this might come as a shock to some of you… But… *gets out armor and shields* **WANDA IS DEAD**. Um, yes. There. I said it, loud and clear. . I hate doing that… *runs from angry Wanda-fans*

**Recommendation of the Chapter:**

You guys've _gotta_ read "My What?!" by, um, I'll get back to you on that. ^-^' It's Evietro, and it's _schweet_! Basically a little accident occurs thanks to Evan that lands Pietro in the hospital, and Evan feels guilty, and… I think we all know what comes after that. ^-~ I found it in the fanfics section of batE's website Thin Lines. She has the link on her profile. You just _gotta_ check it out! And read "Admirer" while you're at it. ^-~

**Ending Note:** Um. -_- Not much more to say, I think. Next chapter's all Rogue's, o' course, though I might find some way to sneak some Amia-mysterious-little-brother hints in. Who knows? *confers with closet*

Constructive crit! More, yo! _More_, I say!

**Next Installment:** Motivation


	6. Motivation

**Glimpses**

-Motivation-

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, the dulled rhythmic tap of high-heeled boots ringing to the high yellowed ceiling. Another set of footsteps chimed in briskly, scrabbling across the slippery tiles with an unseemly _slap-slap_ that shattered the empty silence.

"Rogue! Like, wait **up**!" The fuschin-haired girl at her locker sighed against the metal, misting the distorted-mirroring surface that sent the warmth of her own breath flooding back to her. Behind her, the other bent over, grasping shaky knees as she gasped for breath, and gasped again as her schoolbooks began slipping to the floor. After a hasty recovery, she straightened like a shot, almost too perkily, lofty brown silky ponytail jouncing with a fluid flick. Her girlish voice was still just a trifle breathless as she turned to her companion, laughter and annoyance intermingling. "Why do you have to walk so fast? It's not like your locker is gonna run away, you know."

The loud metallic screech, followed closely by a deafening _clang_ as the locker slammed shut, caused the brunette to wince, nearly dropping her books again. "Jeez, what's up with **you** today?"

An almost ghostly pale face, lips and lids sharply defined by deep purple, and prominent with a cleft chin jutting from a clenched jaw, was unveiled by the short, thick curtain of skunk-style hair as the darker-haired girl turned and leaned against the now-closed locker with another heavy sigh. A large pile of schoolbooks dropped from her arms to land at their feet with a flat, earsplitting _smack_. Her voice dripped exasperation. "Whaddaya want?!"

The Goth girl had crossed her arms firmly over the black cloth overlapping her forest green sweater, face dark and posture challenging, one eyebrow raised in unspoken derision. She felt no remorse when the freshman flinched at her harsh, cutting tone. She'd had enough of the world today, and something in her seemed to have loosened in an odd way that brought both pain and relief.

"I-is he, like, um, okay?" Kitty asked nervously, shrinking in on herself. "I tried everybody else already, but they wouldn't tell me anything. And you're like the only one Mr. McCoy'll let near him." Her chin dipped closer to the books she was hugging to her chest.

Rogue sighed again, this time out of resignation, knowing she wouldn't get rid of the girl till she gave her **something** to walk away with. Quashing the urge to pretend she didn't know who or what Kitty was talking about, the dark-haired girl ran a hand through the white forelock caressing her cheek and studiously avoided the questioning blue eyes. She spoke to the schoolbooks scattered across the floor, "Look, Ah'm really not the person ta ask about these thangs, Kit-cat. Ah don't know anythang about medicine."

"Well," the slender brunette floundered for a moment, brow wrinkling in confusion, "then, like, what **can** you tell me? Anything at all, Rogue. I just want to know if he's okay." She said this so earnestly the dark emerald eyes widened slightly, swiveling to fix on her. Kitty bit her lip uncomfortably under the sharply scrutinizing gaze before it softened a little, and Rogue relented her suspicion.

"Ah guess Ah could trah," she mused. "Tell ya what, Ah'll just tell ya what Ah saw." The girl at her elbow nodded eagerly. Playing with the diaphanous fabric of her sleeve, Rogue paused, gathering her thoughts. The gossamer material moved with a will of its own, constantly eluding her fingers as it shifted in wispy folds of transparent green.  "Um, well, he hasn't woken up yet, but Mistah McCoy says he should be fahne once the internal bleedin' stops."

"Internal bleeding?" Kitty's eyes were huge.

Rogue had to exercise much self-control to refrain from giving herself a good hard whack upside the head. _Me an' mah big fat mouth…_

" 'S nothin' much, nothin' lahfe-threatenin' or anythang," she hastily reassured her friend. "He jus' needs more tahme ta heal'n with normal hurts."

Kitty clutched fistfuls of her dainty pink cardigan and shook her head helplessly, looking into the distance out the window as though hoping to find better answers there. Rogue looked away from that sorrowful, lost gaze, feeling a sudden surge of compassion mixed with an odd strand or two of envy for the smaller girl. All her life, Kitty had been coddled, surrounded by people close to her. In the eternal spirit of naïveté, she had come to rely on that snug ring of friends and family. But now, in less than a week, she'd lost one of them and had nearly lost another.

The deep green eyes came to rest on the brunette once more. Kitty lifted her head quizzically, catching the sudden movement. "Look, Ah got an ahdea. Ah won't be back at the manse for a whahle. I gotta work on a scahence project in the lahbrary. So how's 'bout you go back an' keep Kurt comp'ny in mah place? Tell Mistah McCoy Ah sent ya." Getting into the spirit of it, she went so far as to give the other girl a conspiratorial wink.

A great smile lit the heart-shaped face. "Really, Rogue? Oh, thank you **so** much!" Kitty gushed. "Like, you can't imagine how much this means to me. You're the best!" After a quick half-hug, the cheered brunette fairly skipped on her way down the hall, unheeding of her books now and trailing papers all the way.

Alone now, Rogue allowed herself a wry smile and a shake of the head at the girl's antics. _Hopeless case._ She chuckled discreetly to herself before abruptly sobering as she whirled around and hurriedly pulled her locker open once more, peering round the door down the hall, at the reason she'd taken the unusual initiative of dispatching Kit-cat more joyful than she'd arrived.

The person had been a mere tiny shadowy form against the glowing light of the windows in the front doors down the main hallway, but now he was much closer and much more visible. Narrowed dark eyes now widened far beyond their normal proportions and Rogue pulled back with a barely audible gasp of surprise before catching herself and her breath; she'd known who it was, she just didn't allow herself to believe it.

_What is **he** doin' here?_ For it was Pietro Maximoff walking in her direction at what seemed the pace of a crawl, his head hanging and steps dragging. Even the gravity-defying wing-locks seemed to be drooping. He carried no books, though he usually had a couple with him; Rogue really couldn't deny he was an incredible student when he decided to be. She found herself glancing about for the rest of the Brotherhood, but the school was completely, eerily empty, and then she remembered she'd seen them leave more than a quarter of an hour ago.

She bit her lip in a flurry of indecision, chanced a glance back down the hall and cursed silently before she busied herself at her locker. When the dull steps were just behind her, she slammed the door shut and whirled around; ready to confront him, though she didn't have a clue why she was doing it or what she was going to say. As it turned out, her worries were groundless.

"P-Pietro!" Rogue's surprise was genuine; she'd turned too fast and lost her balance, knocking into him rather hard. She waited apprehensively for the tirade that always came all at once, the words tumbling over one another in a complete mess of gibberish. However, the blue eyes merely snapped up in passive surprise before they slid closed and, with a sigh, the silver head that had risen now falling back and away, and he turned and continued walking.

Leaving Rogue to gape after him in astonishment and utter incomprehension. She shook herself and picked up her books, her mind racing. **_What_**_ the hell?! Okay, now Ah **know** somethin's goin' down._

She started to run. "Pietro! Now jus' wait a minute!" Then abruptly he was gone without a trace, the hallway completely empty now. A gust of wind lifted Rogue's hair and tugged at it wildly. "Ah, **shit**. Ah shoulda known." She slumped against an anonymous locker in defeat, glaring at the nondescript floor tiles that still seemed to ring with her steps. And his.

_Somethin's up with the Brothahood._ She shook her head. She would never have admitted it to anyone but herself, well out of the vicinity of Jean or the Professor, but she worried about them. The Brotherhood… were ruffians; they were the bad guys. Still, Rogue worried.

She was used to ignoring it, but still, somewhere deep down inside, she worried when she remembered the sorry state of their house, utilities and money; she worried about the four boys living alone, all mutants, all in possible danger now from mutant hunters, with nothing to protect them but their bravado and their powers; she worried about Lance, the tough guy who was anything but, about Fred, simplicity personified, about Toad – **Todd**, the little kid at heart. And now, she found herself worrying about Pietro. **Pietro**.Rogue almost laughed.

A strange calm had washed over her as she retreated into old, old, familiar territory; her face gradually fell into its usual dark, weighed down expression. An involuntary sigh of relief escaped her lips as she tucked a renegade lock of white behind her ear. It was getting harder and harder to "keep your chin up", as Logan put it. She could feel the strain of it almost every second, nowadays.

Mellow golden light played over the walls, casting dancing shadows down the hallway. The rain had stopped – for a time. As she meandered through the corridors with no clear goal, Rogue fancied she could hear the ghosts of long-ago students whispering on their way down the hall. She smiled, nostalgia overtaking her as it always did at this hour. Sometimes she missed that whole silence, pristine and undisturbed.

Some days, she just wanted to go into her room and lock the door, shut out the rest of the world, close the lights and **sit**. But of course, there was always either the roommate, or something else. She was an X-man, after all; she had her duties and rules and she adhered to them scrupulously. Some days she felt like she was living in a straitjacket.

Rogue came to the doors. Behind her, a gloomy facelessness had overtaken the familiar hallways, seeping softly into every crack of light like a dark fog. She turned and blew a kiss to thin air; it felt only appropriate. The heavy metal door cracked open as she heaved her elbow against it, and an icy breeze blew a few thin tendrils through the slit. Rogue shivered and suddenly, she didn't feel like going home.

_Home._ The door slid shut with a click that seemed too loud, bouncing away into the gray-black ashes of the sunset. Rogue stood with her back against it, letting out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. It was so rare that she could be alone like this, not having to answer to anyone, and she'd had enough of answering today.

She had never used any tone remotely close to what she'd given Kitty today for a long time, since she'd joined the X-men, to any of them, at least deliberately. Rogue sighed heavily, dropping her books and burying her face in her hands; some days, she just wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves, then chomp down real hard on a pillow, and **scream**. Some days, she wished they'd get the hell out of her life. Not for good; just for a good long while.

Slender gloved hands clenched into fists. Despite the bulky fabric, the potential weapons felt naked and small. Frustratingly impotent. Fingernails dug plushy trenches in the tough leather.

She never did anything though; not even anything remotely close to the scenarios she erected within the private confines of her mind, doing her best to shield them from the two resident telepaths. They had never yet invaded that privacy, but she supposed she was still too paranoid to trust them like that. Truth to tell, she could only attribute this unusual reluctance to act on her own wishes to fear, plain and simple. A fear she couldn't squash, that they were still watching and waiting, waiting to throw her out at the first sign of any misbehavior. And if the X-men threw her out, she didn't know where she would go. Rogue shivered at the sudden chill spreading through her despite the ample clothing that covered almost every inch of bare skin, and wrapped her arms around herself. She'd seen this truth before, but never had it appeared so plain, nor so cold.

With an effort, she wrenched herself from that particular path of the thought, back to the one at hand. She had never, **ever** seen this sort of behavior from Pietro. Or rather, lack of behavior. As a result, she didn't know what to make of it. At all. One thing she knew, however, was that something was very, very wrong. Wanda seemed to be missing, but that wasn't too unusual among the Brotherhood. However, Lance wasn't his easygoing self and had had a terrible fight with Kitty; Todd was always sullen and watched flies buzzing about without a twitch; even Freddy was unusually subdued. And now Pietro… If only she knew what was going on.

"Ah'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely, without knowing who she was apologizing to, or why. Had she forgotten? Or maybe she just didn't want to remember… The words became a chant as she sank to the floor. "Ah'm sorry Ah'm sorry Ah'm sorry…"

She remembered the day she'd left the Brotherhood. They hadn't been too worried when she'd started throwing things into a bag. After all, one or more of them sometimes disappeared for days on end. Pietro had been the first to sense something amiss. He'd caught her taking her favorite glass sculpture from the mantelpiece in the middle of the night. He'd said nothing, just watched her expressionlessly, but his silence and his eyes accused her, and Rogue had been forced to beat an ignominious retreat up to her room, leaving her sculpture where it was. It hadn't ended there; she'd known it wouldn't.

She had to admit, he was quick, that one. In more ways than one.

And so, the next morning, when she stormed to the front door, one of Todd's colorless, threadbare duffel bags slung over one shoulder of her dark trench coat, she found him leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed and eternal smirk firmly in place. Lance was at his side, eyebrows lowered beneath the irrepressible bangs. The other two peeked curiously round the kitchen doorway.

Rogue smiled ruefully at the memory. She'd pulled off her glove with a menacing growl. "Git the hell outta mah way, Speedy. Ah don't got the tahme today."

At the sight of her bared hand, dangerously close to himself, Pietro seemed to lose a little of his seemingly impenetrable cool, but he was still cocksure enough to grab her wrist at the sleeve and laugh, mocking her. "And just **where** do you think you're going, little miss?"

"Whah you–" Rogue had been fully prepared to give him a taste of her **other** hand as she shook her glove to the floor, but Lance, with a growl like an angry bear, had caught that hand as well. She was helpless, immobilized. "Let go a' me, ya stupid morons! Ah'm gettin' the hell outta the Brothahood, that's what Ah'm doin'. Ah'm goin' to the X-men." Lance took a sharp breath and dropped her hand like it was poison despite the sleeve, but Pietro grabbed it before she could put it to use, his already bruising grip tightening like a vise till she gasped.

She would never forget the malice in the dark blue eyes as he pushed his face so close to hers she was almost afraid he would actually touch her. His voice was the hiss of a coiled snake. "We not **good** enough for you, Roguey?" Before she had the chance to protest, he went on with an ugly smile, "Well, let me show you to the door." In the blink of an eye, he'd pushed her sprawling out onto the veranda, and by the time she regained her senses, the slam of the door behind her was only a faint ringing in her ears.

She still felt miserable at the mere memory of that fateful day. The disbelief in Lance's eyes, quickly coated with a thick layer of anger, had remained terribly blatant in the faces in the kitchen. It would've been funny if it hadn't been so awfully wrong.

But the worst, or… she didn't know. It was something but she didn't know what it was, and it had come with her, oldness, rough around the edges, to the stainless steel newness of the X mansion.

One hand slipped into a hidden pocket inside her tight-fitting, sleek black skirt and grasped something startlingly hard and cool in the soft, intimate warmth. Slowly she brought it up before her, till it caught the last little tinges of light. Even so, the delicate glass figurine threw out a dazzling display of swirling color, magnificent outstretched wings extended in flight into the trails of little diamond glints. A little smile flitted on the darkened lips, before disappearing when the dark eyes came to rest on the swan's head, where the pitted, jagged surface suggested something had been broken away.

She'd been so furious when she'd seen what he'd done, swore she'd kill him and thought up a few choice methods too, until she'd realized why, and laughed till she cried instead. 

_The Swan Queen's lost 'er crown…_

Thunder rumbled. A particularly bright spot of rust-burnt sunlight lit and caught on the grooves etched along the graceful curve of the swan's neck. The words glowed fire, red-hot as when she'd first found the figurine on her dresser after Logan had closed the door and she'd dumped her duffel bag on the springy soft bed, a novelty in itself. The script had an oddly chipped and smoothened air as though whatever had cut it in had passed again and again, countless times till friction bored the surface into slippery glossiness and no roughness left to nick. The tiny letters, graceful and awkward at the same time, seemed to burn into her vision.

_See you soon._ A shadow fluttered. The words flickered, blurred and disappeared. Outside, the last vestiges of sun were washed away in the renewed downpour.

Slowly, Rogue returned the swan to its place in her pocket. Since that day, she hadn't seen the Brotherhood outside of school or battle.

That day, they had become the enemy. She'd been almost shocked at how easy the transition was, but she supposed that with their delinquency and their crude attitudes, she'd never exactly been able to think of them as allies, "her side". Housemates, maybe, distant enough. She'd made sure of that.

The worst was when she fought them.

They never seemed to notice her till she was upon them; indeed, they almost never took the initiative of attacking her, as though they'd forget her presence as soon as a battle broke out between the two sides.

But when she touched them… or even when she charged them. When they turned and looked into her eyes, there was always surprise in their gaze. Always. A flicker that gutted out so quickly it might never have come into being at all, a quirk of her guilty imagination. But when she fought them, she was always angry. It was the only time she could really be angry.

They were surprised every time. Rogue just couldn't understand it, and it frustrated her to no end thinking about it. But the worst part was that she did, shades of understanding overlapping till they formed a shadowy picture, blurry but all too visible.

Every time. Except with Pietro. He never looked at her. She wondered if the surprise was in his eyes too. Somehow she didn't think she'd be able to bear it if it was. He was too different.

In that suspended moment before the eye of time blinked again, during the transfer when the speed sizzled along both their limbs, she would feel more than hear the whispered words at her ear, so fast they almost came out all at the same time. "See ya soon, Roguey, see ya soon."

She hadn't understood the words, then or when they'd winked up at her from the polished clarity of the swan.

Then, Pietro had turned traitor himself. Sitting in the rubble, in the pathway of the Sentinel waiting in the shadows, she'd looked up and seen him there. The blue eyes, so hard and unforgiving that night, had skittered from hers like those of a frightened animal. Her eyes still watering from the dust raised by the ground's collapse beneath them, Rogue felt herself screaming and crying and laughing and a small part dying, inside, all at the same time. The violence of her reaction, albeit internal, to the white-haired boy's betrayal had frightened her; she still didn't understand it.

Emerging from the fog of the seemingly distant memories, Rogue raised a hand to her burning cheek. Her fingers came away wet, and she looked at them in dazed wonder.

Mystique's double-crossing was the main reason she'd left the Brotherhood, but there had been others. The X-men. A vivid memory gripped her. A starry night, hiding alone behind a tree, the rest of the Brotherhood long gone, the cold wind swirling around her, within her. They were laughing and teasing. They seemed so carefree, so happy…

It wasn't that the Brotherhood didn't give a damn about each other. They left each other alone. They gave her space, let her lock herself in and think without interrupting her, though that might have been because they were afraid of her, Rogue thought ruefully. The X-men certainly were. Not **afraid**, exactly. Cautious, hesitant to touch even her clothes, as though she had some contagious disease. She might not have caught those little moments before they slapped her on the back or hugged her if she hadn't been looking for them, she supposed. Still, they were there.

Now, Rogue wasn't that big on touch. She'd never hugged or kissed or anything like that very much even before her powers had appeared. It truly sucked on the romantic standpoint, she supposed, but she'd worry about that when the true time came. She'd been asked out a few times, but they had been very casual and more often than not she'd refused, not because of her powers but because she just wasn't feeling social at that moment.

It had never really been a big issue with the Brotherhood either, come to think of it. They weren't exactly the hug'n kiss types either. Rogue almost burst out laughing at the mere concept.

It was with the X-men that it became a problem. Slaps on the back, hugs, playful elbowing and in general lots of contact was an almost unconscious trait with these kids. Rogue rather disliked being constantly reminded of her "limitation". She dealt with it.

That had to be it. The freedom she'd enjoyed with the Brotherhood must have been because they were just too afraid of her to break her door down (as she'd heard Toad had done with Wanda; the screams had probably carried all the way down to Baltimore).

However, it sure didn't seem that way when they all converged in the living room for a TV dinner. The old TV, dust seeping from every crack, had been slimed once, watered thrice and knocked over countless times. Todd had found it in the basement. Mystique had her own in the lavish master bedroom.

They all sat on the amorphous mass of fabric-draped cotton that was the couch and passed the food around, playing Monkey-in-the-Middle with the overcooked sausages. Fred was always the monkey. The too-cramped couch was of a color somewhere between Todd's slime and swamp muck. Rogue was squashed in along with the rest of them, shoved, elbowed, teased mercilessly when Todd ambushed her for a hug, which was much too often, in her opinion, nearly sat on by Freddy. By the end of whatever pathetic sitcom it was they were watching that day (the TV was stuck on one channel because no one knew where the remote had gotten to), they were a laughing, scowling, complaining, and usually fairly slimy tangle of limbs because the couch would sink gradually in on itself as sand through a sieve, and it took half an hour just to get up. Rogue felt herself smiling and tried to stop, but couldn't, and didn't really want to, anyway. She even opened her mouth and laughed a little, though salty droplets trickled onto her tongue and she coughed from the brackish taste.

And then there was Scott. Rogue turned around and forced herself to see the other side of the equation. And Jean. _Some thangs just ain't meant to be…_ And that was that.

Rogue shook her head ruefully as she gathered her books and stood, ignoring the tears lingering on her cheeks. She'd left the Brotherhood, chasing a dream into the clouds, and found that, when she arrived, she was living on a cloud.

-

The cold clean lights that flooded the bathroom when she flicked the switch caused her to flinch and attempt to hide behind her auburn hair. On a whim, she shut the lights and walked into the white-tiled room lit only by the aging yellow strains of a streetlamp just outside. The echoes of water rushing in the porcelain bowls resonated eerily, seeming to come from every direction at once in the semi-darkness of refracting slanted shadows. Outside, the rain pattered softly, slipping streaks down the window.

Even in the faint light that only just touched the matted, peeling plaster of the walls scrawled over with messages over messages, Rogue could see the tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Her mascara and lipstick had run and she looked like some freshly fed vampire, especially when she smirked at the mirror, showing slips of teeth.

Ah gotta have me one a' these crahfests every once in a whahle if Ah'm not ta go insane. 

As she was freshening up for the long walk home, she thought she detected a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. Dropping the bottle of eyeliner in the sink with a loud clatter, she leaped back against the wall, crouching instinctively in a defensive stance, arms rigid before her. "Who's thair?"

This time she definitely saw movement. Some one stepped into view, half in shadow and somewhat silhouetted against the old, stained-glass glow falling in a skewed rectangle onto the floor and the opposite wall.

Rogue's first bewildered thought was, _Do Ah know 'em?!_

For even in shadow, the person seemed familiar. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. The profile seemed almost unnaturally tall and hinted at a bearing somehow awkward. Sheer-lidded eyes glittered in a face almost statuesque in its half-definition in the dimness. A hint of copper shone in the dark mass falling about the slumped shoulders.

"Could… I ask you something?" The trace of déjà vu vanished when the person spoke, although the soft, hesitant voice was somehow familiar as well. Different, however, from the first impression.

Rogue shook her head in confusion, gnawing on her lip as she relaxed somewhat. "Who are ya an' what the **hell** you doin' here this tahme a' nahght?"

She sensed more than saw the other smile. There was a hint of nervousness in the tentatively playful tone. "It isn't that late. Besides, you're here, aren't you?"

"Git ta the point, won'tcha?." The dark-haired girl leaned against the wall, annoyed but reassured. "Ah don't got all nahght."

"A-are things okay up at the Xavier Institute?" She started at the question that came seemingly out of nowhere and the dark emerald eyes narrowed, deeply ingrained suspicion immediately kicking in.

"An' what's it to **you**?" The sound of feet shuffling uncomfortably scraped in the utter stillness. The other girl stepped forward, one hand outstretched, then seemed to think better of it, and the hopeful gesture fell away. Rogue saw now that the redhead was only slightly taller than herself.

"I-It's not what you think."

"Oh, yeah? What is it, then?" she demanded, voice hard. Normally even she wasn't this hard on outsiders poking around in her business, but the unmasking had set them all on edge.

A sigh. "Never mind." The girl sounded genuinely disappointed, a faint quaver in her voice as though she were inexplicably close to tears. And then suddenly she was gone, vanished into the shadows as though she'd never been there in the first place.

Rogue stared, as a trickle of warmth made its way sluggishly down her chin. _What was **that** all about?_

--

**Dedication:**

To Absolute Alcohol, Ellen, Chiru, Mistress of Dragons and Toni. Thanks for stickin' with me, y'all!

**Info:** Kurt is all screwed up, as y'all know, plus Rogue sapping him didn't help… The crown symbolizes loyalty in Irish lore. ^-~ Nope, Rogue doesn't know about Wanda. She was blobbed, 'member? And let's just say it's a bit of a touchy subject. 'Ah' as you should all know, is Rogue's Southern accent substitute for 'i', 'y', and 'er' (I think that's about it).

**A/N:** This whole thing is going to hell. . I promise some actual _action _soon. Jeez, Rogue had a lot to say. And she's not done yet! 0.o This was just growing out of control, so I was forced to split it in two unless I wanted to write clear through the next week to get it done and end up with a, I dunno, 15-page all-Rogue-thoughts chapter. 0.o Dang that's a scary picture. Next chapter will be Rogue again, probably shorter (though that assertion is questionable), and will involve the other X-men. I hope the Southern gal wasn't too OOC. I think I screwed up her and Kitty's speech patterns. Me no good with speech patterns. .

Yeah, yeah, I totally glossed over Rogue's touch issues, but that path of angsty goodness is getting really stale.

It's Friday the 13th! XD And I didn't even notice…

And I'm very very mad at refusing-to-upload-anything Document Manager right now, it's 2:30 in the morning and I have a moth snoozing right in front of me on the desk. . Isn't life wonderful?

I am definitely obsessed with Pietro. XD

**Review Responses:**

**Absolute Alcohol – **Miss a chapter, longer review! ^-^ The cup is half-full, eh? At least someone actually got Retrospection. . *hands AA a medal* Glad you could keep up with my disjointed ramblings there. I hope Rogue didn't disappoint you. She's _hard_ to write! She's kind of… angsty/nostalgic in this. It's hard to make her happy when everyone else is moping around, that'd probably make her appear evil or something… Yeah, Rogue is a big candidate for yuri, but since I'm more a fan of yaoi and Wanda's dead (I think Rwanda ^-~ is probably one of the more popular pairings on that point), no worries there. I couldn't write Scott to save my life, so no Rott (lol), either. At the moment, I'm not quite sure what to do with Rogue in regard to the BoM… I don't think I'll have her go back, as that's way overdone and kind of unrealistic (although a nice concept), though who knows. She does have a part to play besides that, though. Yeah, Todd got screwed over and Pietro… Yeah. Cool. Pietrance is warming up in this, too. ^-^ Lance cheer him up? Who knows… These guys have their own methods. I'll go take a look at your suggestion, if I haven't already read it. Thanks much, and see ya!

**Ellen – **I dub thee the 2x Reviewer. ^-^ Keep it up! Lance is my fave BoM character just about tied with P. Yep, Pietro's hair is messy. 0.o Run for your lives it's the end of the world!!! BoM to the "rescue"? You'll see! You'll see…

Chiru – I'm a slashaholic m'self. Oooh, know whatcha mean. . Stupid blurbs with their stupid "popularity". Don't they have better things to do? Rogue is cool and all, but too angsty for my taste, so I guess Wanda's my favorite, too. I mean, Jean's boring; Kitty is… it's not her 'likes', I do pretty much the same, it's like some kinda weird useless instinct, but I can't say I like her much; Tabitha's… interesting I guess but her manner seriously undermines my attempts to like her; Rahne and Jubilee appear too briefly (plus Rahne's voice annoys the hell outta me and Jubilee… looks flimsy. _Very_ different from her comic self). I have a very big inner sadist. In fact, I have an alter-ego who claims ownership of my darker stories. 8D What I hate, however, is saying things like "Wanda is dead" straight out and flat like that. . It seems… anticlimactic. I really dunno what exactly I'll be doing with Amia in this fic… I'll have to figure it out sometime… Which is why she's just skulking around in the shadows for now, literally. =D Thankee much. It is pretty hard to find a recent fic that portrays him properly. One usually has to go to the older ones for that. Pity. Ooh, intelligence. *plays with it and drops it* Whoops. ^-~ 

**Mistress of Dragons – **Er, gee. . I guess Retrospection was more incomprehensible than I thought it was. Oh, well. I am putting him through quite a bit, aren't I? You'll get to see what _he_ thinks of it, chapter after the next. *whaps Rogue with a slide rule* Em/Pietro, I hope you do, Em kill Pietro, I hope you don't. ^-^' Don't kill my poor P? Please? You can have her scratch him but I do hope he doesn't die. *sniff* That'd be so friggin' tragic! No tragedy, thank you very much. Angst is all good, but tragedy of the permanent variety is not for my P. Ramble on. Rambling is good because it makes for long reviews even if they are rambling. ^-~ Insomnia is good for me because it makes me crank out better fics. 0.o Dunno why but I think better late at night. Thank Ra my little sis is too small to hog the comp. I'm going to assume Glimpses 8 is late (rhymie…) because of the Document Manager problem…

**Toni – **Here's to soon! Thanks a lot, I'm glad you like it! ^-^

**Recommendation of the Chapter:**

Go read my Harry Potter fic! I command you! XD "Hunter's Moon – Last Dance" is probably the darkest story I've ever written. And no, that's not it.

Everybody should go read Chiru's Pietro-centric fics. All of 'em, especially the uber-licious "Shattered Silver". Love you forever, Chiru, for giving me such a long, lovely and angsty Pietro-Pietro-Pietro-and-more-Pietro fic to read. ^_^ It's probably my favorite all-Pietro fic to date. I absolutely adored the flashbacks of little Pietro (such a sweet li'l guy!), and I also really enjoyed the way you portrayed the Acolytes, which is saying something since while I like them, I'm not a fan, per se, more of a… partial person. Heehee. But yes, "Shattered Silver" is da bomb and I totally _loved_ it. Go R & R, y'all, and make her feel guilty enough to continue it because I, for one, am starved for both Season 4 and Pietro fics, 'cuz frankly, FF.net category listings these days scare/revolt me. Plus, double-starvation is not fun. At all. .

I'm having a double-recommendation for this chapter because I just read one of the best BoM fics ever made: Homoinferior by Shindo and SRI Queen. An awesome, awesome, _awesome_ fic with the kind of dark grayish (sorry for the weird description) atmosphere that's so prevalent and so appropriate among the older, better Brotherhood fics. Lance leaves the Brotherhood to go to UCLA and then doesn't want to return. Now that he's back… If you hurry up and get your ass over to EvolutionSlash (Yahoo group; find the link in Chapter 7 of AngelRosiel's "The Power of Slushies", awesome, absolutely _adorable_ Pietrance right there) you might be able to catch it there. If not, well, you _could_ ask for it again or dig around in FF.net… A definite must-read.

**Ending Note:** I seem to have acquired a little group of loyal reviewers. Coolios! I love you guys!

I've got a tiny headstart on the next chapter, so that _should_ be up before long unless I go off on some other weird tangent again. I certainly hope not. Pietro has waited long enough. Weird how long it's taking for me to get around to writing my very _favorite_ character. .

Freddy has not dropped off the surface of the Earth just yet, peeps. He'll have an appearance in Pietro-chapter. ^-^ The fellow's going to be somewhat difficult to provide a personality for…

Survival of the Fittest is probably one of THE best episodes in Evo, and Shadowed Past was awesome too. ^-^ Operation Rebirth… Magneto being magnanimous. 0.o That sounds bizarre, and not just in the noise sense, either. Spykecam was… bleh. Boring as hell. Even my Mom said so, and she _isn't_ against Evan-centric stuff.

Okay, I'll stop babblin' now. ^-^' These AN's are getting impossibly long. So… tell me what you think of Rogue's monstrous collection of thoughts, and see y'all next chap!

**Next Installment: **Nostalgia (0.o I'm breaking the pattern! The sky will fall, the volcanoes erupt, and Jupiter spin out of orbit! Gaah!)


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